Written by

Maureen Wallenfang

Post-Crescent Media

The former Eddie Bauer space on the Fox River Mall’s central corridor will be used as expansion space for Forever 21, the discount women’s fashion clothing store next door.

Forever 21 also leased the former Signature Day Spa space and the corridor next to it around the corner in the Target wing, giving the store a total of 14,369 square feet for its expanded store. The larger footprint will wrap around Kay Jewelers and Pretzelmaker, two stores that will remain untouched.

“It will be the biggest store in the mall outside of the department stores,” said John Burgland, the mall’s senior general manager.

Forever 21 is a fast growing specialty store. In Minnesota’s Mall of America, for example, it took 82,000 square feet of the former Bloomingdale’s department store space in December. It had no problem filling the massive store with its women’s clothing lines plus accessories, lingerie and men’s wear. There, too, it is the largest store in the mall, not counting the anchor department stores.

For the moment, the Eddie Bauer and Signature Day Spa stores in the Fox River Mall will remain untouched. Construction barricades won’t go up for another month.

“They’ll start construction in the middle of June and be open late in October,” said Burgland.